


Across A Wine Dark Sea

by Phoenixflames12



Category: The Sunne in Splendour - Sharon Kay Penman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 06:35:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4777220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not knowing if she will ever see her youngest sons alive again, Cecily Neville, the Duchess of York says farewell to Richard and George as they are sent into exile to Burgundy after the battle of Sandal Castle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Across A Wine Dark Sea

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose you could call this a slight interlude as I try to work out how to write the next chapter of 'Find You Again'.  
> (Oneshot)

‘And though I am not with you now, I will be with you always’,

 

The words fight through a caught sob as she clasps the clip of the precious pilgrim’s cross that she has worn since she was fifteen around the neck of her youngest son. Richard’s eyes blink up at her; shrouded with a distant pain that only the very young could feel, his mouth set, looking far too young and fragile to be set out on the waiting ship to Burgundy.

 

Beside him stands George; deep grey eyes, crinkled with unshed tears, eyes that she can never look upon without facing the gaze of her lost son.

 

 

George has Edmund’s eyes; the same soft, dove grey that is flecked with blue and she has to swallow thickly as she places a hand atop Richard’s crown of curls for the Mothers’ blessing that is due for them.

 

‘When… When will see you again _ma_ mère ? ‘

 

She shakes her head, busying herself with a spare rosary which has been hanging from her belt ever since she married the Duke of York; now little more than one of the many York dead on the field at Wakefield. She cannot bring herself to answer that question, cannot bring herself to remind herself that the only ones she has left now are Meg and Edward; with Anna and Eliza safe in their marriages and her youngest, her precious sons who stood ramrod straight on the cross at Ludlow are being ripped away from her.

 

Who knows when she will see them again?

 

‘M’lady?’

 

She doesn’t hear the ship’s mate; a burly, red faced man in his early thirties; approach them; sleet grey eyes dark with worry as he takes in the frightened children shivering in the sharp sea breeze.

 

‘The ship’s ready m’lady a’ we must go ‘afore the tide leaves us,’ he claps a hand on George’s shoulder and bends to ruffle Richard’s hair; but Richard shies away, as nervous as a new born colt, his eyes only for his mother.

 

She nods, pressing the side of her index finger to her lips and allowing her lips to work at the skin for a moment; feeling her mind teeter dangerously between the crevices of composure and hysteria.

 

‘Very well’, the words do not sound like her own; her voice does not sound like her own as she feels Richard and George’s eyes fix upon her; full of hopeful, undiluted trust that she hopes, prays can be repayed in time. She remembers the way they had watched her face Margurerite d’Anjou; that glittering French harlot shimmering in black and gold back in Ludlow, remembers with shame the fear that she had struggled to supress as she faced the woman who would soon become the murderer of her husband and her second son.

 

She remembered George reaching for her, trembling, sweaty palms allowing her to lean him as if he were a man grown and not the child of ten that had flared at Edmund for leaving his siblings to the mercy of the Lancastrian wolves.

 

The wind shifts slightly and a strain of urgency suddenly catches her, urgency that reminds her all to clearly of the panic that had gripped her at the sight of Edmund Beaufort watching colour burn across her cheekbones. It is the same urgency she had felt only hours previously; when numb with hastily blinked back sleep; they had been raised from their beds and brought here with Rob Parr; the only squire she trusted.

 

She sees Rob now, caught in the shadows, looking as young as Edmund had done when he and Edward had left Ludlow, his face grim with expectation.

‘We must go now, m’lady’, she barely hears the captain’s cough; barely feels Richard’s rack-thin body pressing against hers for warmth. Instinctively she reaches to grip his hand and he squeezes back, his eyes fixed firmly on his feet.

 

‘Must we go _ma_ _mère ? ‘_ It is George, always George; her blonde haired darling whose feelings are as readable as a book. Richard says nothing, his wide, blue-grey eyes betraying everything that he cannot bring himself to say as he steals a glance at his brother and then just as quickly, fixes his eyes on his boots.

 

She nods again, looking for Rob, looking for some semblance of reality, of normality; that this did not have to be real and she was not saying farewell to her last-born sons for who knew how long.

 

‘Rob will look after you,’ she says finally, still not fully trusting her voice. She has faith in Rob; one of her husbands many wards, but one of the very few that had stayed on to be fostered into squirehood in the hope of one day becoming a knight.

 

George nods, seemingly content at this reassurance; but still Richard will not meet her eyes.

‘George…’ She glances down at Richard; funny, dark child that he is; so unlike any of his siblings and then holds her favourite’s gaze.

 

‘Yes _ma_ _mère ? ‘_

‘Look after Dickon,’ she cannot say any more, cannot bear to see them finally leave as Rob Parr slowly slips from his place standing nervously by a coil of ships’ line and wordlessly steers the boys away.

 

‘Rob…’ His name is  suddenly caught on her lips; the syllable fraught with an urgency that makes him turn.

 

‘Yes my lady?’

She swallows, thinking of Meg safely asleep at Barnard’s castle, thinking of Edward in London, thinking of her husband and Edmund lying in their eternal sleep at Pontefract castle.

 

‘Keep them safe’, she manages finally. ‘They are all I have left now… Please, by the blessed Mary and all the Saints…’ He nods, silent tears pricking at his eyes.

 

‘I will, my lady and… And Christ keep you safe’, she nods and makes to leave, watching the clouds squabble over the wind in the slowly lightening sky. The ship would have to go now if they were to catch this tide and make it to Burgundy without being caught.

 

‘Mother!’ A bundle of muscle, skin and bones, topped with a crop of ebony curls barrels its’ way into her as she is confronted by Richard; pale and terrified in his sudden understanding of what is about to happen.

 

She draws him close, remembering all too clearly the moment when she had thought she had lost him on the steps of the cross at Ludlow. He shivers into the comforting weight of her embrace; all the hard-won energy coiling into his chest as he scrabbles at the cloth of her gown.

 

‘We…We will come back…. Mother?’ The blue-grey eyes are shining with something she can't quite place; a mix of fear and pain that she wishes she could erase completely with reassurances that she knows will come to naught. 

 

_How hard it was to explain to a child of eight the notions of exile!_

 

‘If your brother can secure his claim to the throne, my dear…’ She swallows, pressing her lips to his hair, wondering how much she can tell him, how much time she has left with him, with both of them before it is too late.

 

But all too soon, Rob is there and she is watching two small figures getting smaller and smaller; one fair, one dark as the ship slowly pulls out of the harbour.

 

She does not know when she will see them again, she only knows that she will see them again and she must take comfort in that fact; comfort in the fact that they are safe and God's will be willing; she will see them again; whether it be in this world or the next.

 

* * *

 

_**Fin** _

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


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